Nashe (Thomas, 1567-c.1601). A sammelband of 7 works, 1592-1600, comprising, in order: Nashes Lenten Stuffe, Containing, The Description and first Procreation and Increase of the towne of Great Yarmouth in Norffolke, 1st edition, 1599; Haue with you to Saffron-Walden. Or, Gabriel Harueys Hunt is vp, 1st edition, 1596; Pierce Penilesse His Supplication to the Diuell, 1593; Strange Newes, Of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Conuoy of Verses, as they were going Pruilie to victuall the Low Countries, 1592; The Terrors of the night Or, A Discourse of Apparitions, 1st edition, 1594; [Attributed to John Lyly], Pappe with an hatchet. Alias, A figge for my God sonne, [1589]; A Pleasant Comedie, called Summers last will and Testament, 1600; all first or early edition issues published in London, all edges gilt, early 19th-century gilt-tooled calf, rebacked with original spine relaid, 4to (177 x 123 mm)

(Quantity: 1)

Additional material bound in:

A small portrait frontispiece of Nashe is mounted as frontispiece before the first title (19th-century reproduction from a 1597 original). At the start of the volume is a 4-page manuscript list of Nashe's works with notices of biographical accounts, written in a neat hand, probably by Robert Reeve, on laid paper with watermark of 'A. Smith'; a later manuscript note tipped in noting an account of Nashe's 2 plays published in the Retrospective Review for April 1828; this article copied in a neat contemporary hand and supplied on 3 part-folding pages at rear; a 4-page manuscript, in the same hand and on the same paper as the first list, giving a list of the volume's contents ('These have been long bound together in the same order'), and details of Nashe's works owned by the King's Library (24 items), the Marquis of Stafford (7 items), the Malone collection ('The Tragedie of Dido... by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nash Gent 1594'), the Garrick collection (Summers Last Will and Testament), the British Museum (6 items as referenced by Beloe's Anecdotes) and a final note by Reeve that 'Nash also wrote a play called "The Isle of Dogs” turned from a comedie into a tragedie. But it does not appear to have been printed.'

Provenance: Thomas Smyth (possibly Sir Thomas Smyth of Hill Hall, Essex, c. 1602-1668): early name inscription to second title; Robert Reeve (died 1840), attorney-at law in Lowestoft, Suffolk: ownership inscription to front pastedown: ‘Robert Reeve, Lowestoft’; J[eremiah] J[ames] Colman (1830-1898) and his son Robert James Colman (1861-1946), of the J. & J. Colman mustard business, Norwich, Norfolk: armorial bookplates to front pastedown and front free endpaper.

An extraordinary, and possibly unique, sammelband of rare works by the legendary prose writer Thomas Nashe. The only comparable items identified are a handful of multi-pamphlet volumes offered at auction centred on John Lyly and the Marprelate controversy. This collection of seven works was apparently bound by the former owner Robert Reeve, circa 1820, who notes that the items had been together in this order long since before he owned them. The missing two leaves in the final work are supplied in printed ‘facsimile’ and appear to have been specially set by Reeve at the time of binding; as such these two leaves are probably unique. For more information concerning editions and issue points the standard reference is the 5-volume works edition edited by Ronald B. McKerrow, 1904-10, with extra information obtained from ESTC, STC and Pforzheimer.

Thomas Nashe (or Nash) was an Elizabethan playwright, poet, satirist and pamphleteer. He is often considered the most brilliant and inventive prose writer of Elizabethan England. His subject range was wide as demonstrated in these seven works here. It is thought he collaborated with his friend Christopher Marlowe on Dido, Queen of Carthage, Ben Jonson on The Isle of Dogs (now lost) and Shakespeare on the Henry VI plays. In pamphlets such as Pierce Penniless he was involved in a defence of the Church of England. He was attracted to the Martin Marprelate controversy by his hatred of puritanism, being employed by the bishops to write against the works of fictional character Martin Marprelate. His lengthy and vicious quarrel with Gabriel Harvey was instrumental in defining English prose style and became so troubling that the authorities closed down the printing presses and issued a life ban on writing to both Harvey and Nash (1599).

Nashes Lenten Stuffe (1599) was Nashe’s last work and written after he went on the run from the London authorities following the furore surrounding a performance of his and Ben Jonson’s Isle of Dogs (1597). Have with You to Saffron-Walden was a response to Gabriel Harvey during their lengthy feud. Pierce Penniless contains an attack on both Richard Harvey, the astrologer and the Marinist, who, as part of the Marprelate controversy, had been waging a pamphlet war attacking the episcopacy of the Anglican church. Strange Newes contains Nashe’s fierce response to Harvey’s demolition of the recently deceased writer, Robert Greene. In The Terrors of the Night Nash sceptically considers dreams, nightmares, and apparitions, which he considers born of superstition, melancholy or imagination. Pappe with a hatchet is now believed to have been written by John Lily, though its inclusion here leaves open the idea that Nashe may have had some involvement in it, and besides it is one of the pamphlets in the Marprelate controversy. The last item, Summer’s Last Will and Testament, is Nashe’s only extant solo-authored play, a comedy notable for breaking new ground in the development of English Renaissance drama.

'If Nashe is a "minor" author, or at any rate a flawed one, his stylistic influence was none the less major. His richly textured language is discernible in the comedies of Jonson and the journalism of Dekker, and is more subtly present in Shakespeare: in the Falstaff scenes, in the bitter clowning of Twelfth Night, and even in Hamlet. The inclusiveness of his pamphlets, their gossip and bric-à-brac, have made them a "granary for commentators" (Brydges, Restituta, 1815, 2.359). They have, in the words of his great editor Ronald B. McKerrow (Works, 5.1), "a vividness of presentation which makes them more surely and entirely of their own time and country, more representative of the England of Elizabeth, than almost any others". Their irrepressible humour stands out sharply against the backdrop of circumstances—poverty, censorship, imprisonment—in which they were written.' (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online)

i.

Nashes Lenten Stuffe, Containing, The Description and first Procreation and Increase of the towne of Great Yarmouth in Norffolke: with a new Play neuer played before, of the praise of the Red Herring. Fitte of all Clearkes of Noblemens Kitchins to be read: and not vnnecessary by all Seruing men that haue short boord-wages, to be remembred, 1st edition, London: printed [by Thomas Judson and Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and C[uthbert] B[urby], 1599, [8], 75, [1] pp., woodcut ornament to title, title cut down and relaid without text loss, B1 remargined and rehinged with some trimming of side-notes on both sides, B4 rehinged, both these leaves possibly supplied from another copy, side-notes shaved on E4v, F1r/v & F2v, pinhead burn-hole to F4 not affecting text, a few scattered (?)18th-century ink marginalia, pen trials and ink smudges

First edition. 42 leaves; A-K4 L2.

ESTC S113098; Pforzheimer 764; STC 18370.

ESTC lists 7 copies in the UK and 11 in North America. Only two complete copies have appeared at auction in the last 40 years.

Nashe was likely a major contributor to Shakespeare's Henry VI, part I, and he was a close friend of Marlowe. This is the first edition of Nashe's final work, a delirious display of verbal pyrotechnics that has led modern critics to comparisons with Samuel Beckett and James Joyce. He is the most ingenious and engaging of the great Elizabethan authors in his wordplay. The present work is variously a mock encomium of red herring; a parody of the chorographical literature then in vogue; and a burlesque of Hero and Leander (among many other things).

‘This attempt to “wring juice out of a flint” as Nashe calls the book in his dedication, though perhaps not so regarded by the reading public of that day as only one addition was published in Nashe’s lifetime, may now be very said to be the cleverest and most typically boisterous of all his works. During his exile from London Nash took refuge at Yarmouth and must have been hospitably received for the present book was written in order to repay the debt. It recounts the origin and development of that town with much flourish though yet with some regard for antiquarian accuracy and eulogises the herring fisheries which have made it important in a burlesque encomia.’ (Pforzheimer)

ii.

Haue with you to Saffron-Walden. Or, Gabriel Harueys Hunt is vp. Containing a full Answere to the eldest sonne of the Halter-maker. Or, Nashe his Confutation of the sinfull Doctor, 1st edition, London: printed by John Danter, 1596, [168] pp., engraved headpiece and ornament to title (small tear at lower margin), woodcut of Gabriel Harvey to F4r, closed tear repair to Q1 without loss of text, light damp stain to lower margins, 17th-century ownership signature of Thomas Smyth to title, lacks final blank

First edition. 79 leaves; A-X4 [-X4, blank].

ESTC S110085; Pforzheimer 763; STC 18369.

ESTC lists 6 copies in the UK and 9 in North America. Three copies are noted at auction, all with imperfections and all offered by Sotheby's in 1923, 1946 and 1955.

‘This book while not a formal reply to Harvey’s Pierce’s Supererogation [q.v.] was nevertheless written as a general attack upon Harvey occasioned by the failure of the proffered reconciliation of Christ's Tears [q.v.]. It was the last salvo in this quarrel which Nashe wrote before the order of Whitgift and Bancroft, 1st June 1599, stopped all further publication on the subject … Though sixteen other copies can be traced, two being imperfect, it is doubtful if another as large and clean as the present and having the final blank leaf could be found.’ (Pforzheimer).

The Pforzheimer copy is described as 7 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches [190 x 140 mm], though it is unclear if that is the size of the binding or the leaves. The leaves in the volume offered here have been trimmed to a uniform size of 177 x 123 mm (7 x 5 inches).

iii.

Pierce Penilesse His Supplication to the Diuell, London: Abell Jeffes for I[ohn] B[usbie], 1593, [72] pp., woodcut device to title and tailpiece ornament at end, mostly black letter, title and final page dust-soiled

36 leaves; A-I4.

ESTC S105646; STC 18374. McKerrow (Nash’s Works I pp. 137ff.) identifies 5 early editions, three issued in 1592, one in 1593 (as this copy) and one in in 1595.

Of the edition offered here ESTC locates only two copies, at the British Library and Corpus Christi College, Oxford University. Only three copies of all the early editions have appeared at auction, the most recent sold by Sotheby's in 1946, from the Frank J. Hogan Library, was a first edition of 1592 and described as one of only three known perfect copies. It was issued without Nash's consent or knowledge who disapproved of the long-winded title composed by the printer, so he arranged that Abel Jeffes should issue a second edition with the first seven words alone on the title. All the early editions are very rare.

iv.

Strange Newes, Of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Conuoy of Verses, as they were going Pruilie to victuall the Low Countries, London: printed by John Danter, 1592, [92] pp., small woodcut device to title, some dust-soiling and light damp stain to lower margins, some occasional fore-edge fraying, first 4 leaves rehinged

46 leaves; A-L4 M2.

ESTC S110072; STC 18377a.

McKerrow (Nash’s Works I pp. 247ff.) only saw one edition of 1592 (McKerrow A) but noted that Collier printed his Works edition (1870) from a reissue of the first edition (McKerrow B), with a new title-page and a substituted passage in the ‘Epistle Dedicatorie’, ‘replacing a somewhat libellous one’. The layout of the title-page differs between these two editions. Line 4 shows different spellings ‘Priuilie’ (A) and ‘Pruilie’ (B), while A has a typographical ornament and no imprint details except the date; B has a printer’s woodcut device (the same as for Terrors of the Night) and the imprint and date as described. McKerrow identifies four editions of 1593 but had only seen the last two of these himself.

ESTC locates only one copy of this edition (Henry E. Huntington Library). No copies of any early edition have been traced at auction.

v.

The Terrors of the night Or, A Discourse of Apparitions, 1st edition, London: printed by John Danter for William Iones, 1594, [62] pp., woodcut ornament and small device to title, title dust-soiled, creased and torn with small loss to foremargin not affecting text, relaid, foremargin paper repair to A2 outside of text, occasional dust-soiling, old ink numerals to final leaf verso (blank), lacks final blank

First edition. 31 leaves; A-H4 [-H4, probably blank].

ESTC S110111; STC 18379.

The Shakespearean scholar and antiquarian, James Halliwell-Phillipps (1820-1889) considered Terrors of the Night the rarest of all Nash's works.

ESTC locates 2 copies in the UK and two in North America (British Library (damaged title[page and following leaf), St John’s College, Cambridge University, Folger Shakespeare and Henry E. Huntington Library), all without the final leaf H4, presumed blank. No copies traced at auction.

vi.

[Attributed to John Lyly]. Pappe with an hatchet. Alias, A figge for my God sonne. Or Cracke me this nut. Or A Countrie cuffe, that is, a sound boxe of the eare, for the Idiot Martin to hold his peace, seeing the patch will take no warning. Written by one that dares call a dog, a dog, and made to preuent Martins dog daies, [London]: Imprinted by John Anoke, and John Astile [i.e. Thomas Orwin], for the Bayliue of Withernam, cum priuilegio perennitatis, and are to bee sold at the signe of the crab tree cudgell in thwack-coate lane, [1589], [2], 4, [34] pp., woodcut headpiece to title, title partly stained and double-pinhead-size hole to right margin, a little scattered soiling and marginal pen marks, final blank present

20 leaves; A-E4 [E4 blank].

ESTC S94124; Pforzheimer 649; STC 17463.3.

Bond (Lily’s Works III pp. 388–92) distinguishes three early editions of this work, all with the same collation and all undated. This is 'Edition C': this issue has B2v line 26: 'abusde:'; D4v lines 11-12: 'next | book,shall be …’.

‘That this is not a case of simultaneous printing or of alterations made in the press seems assured since each of the eight copies examined belongs to one edition only, and does not contain any mixture of sheets. These editions appear to have been issued successively and, although it cannot be satisfactorily proved, probably in the order given by bond. Their respective time of issue, however, cannot even be conjectured. Of all the anti-Martinist tracts written by the professional pamphleteers this is the only one of which the authorship is not disputed … Of the three editions of this work some twenty-two copies can be located. Of these at least two besides the present belong to Edition A – the Douce copy at the Bodleian and one at Trinity College Cambridge.’ (Pforzheimer)

ESTC locates 5 copies of this edition, three in the UK, at Dr Williams’s Library, London, Bodleian Library, Oxford University, and The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester; and two in North America, at Indiana University and Yale University, Sterling Memorial. Most recently, Sotheby's sold four varied condition copies of 1589 editions in 2015, remarkably, these were the first copies at auction since 1948.

vii.

A Pleasant Comedie, called Summers last will and Testament, London: Imprinted by Simon Stafford for Walter Burre, 1600, [60] pp., printer's woodcut device to title, blank [A1] bound after title, B2 & B4 missing but supplied from (unique?) early 19th-century typeset ‘facsimile pages’ on laid paper, marginal repair to foremargin of B3 not affecting text, signatures C3-4 cancelled (as always), closely trimmed at upper margin occasionally shaving running heads, a little spotting and soiling, some browning and marginal staining to final leaves

30 leaves; A2 B-H4 I2 [A1 blank after title; -B2,4, supplied with 19th-century settings of the same leaves; -C3,4, cancels]

ESTC S110081; Greg I, 173; Pforzheimer 765; STC 18376.

This copy has Walter Burre’s Christian name corrected in the imprint (found as ‘Water’ in the some copies, including the Pforzheimer copy). The Pforzheimer copy is noted as lacking the first, presumed blank, leaf, found in this copy after the title as [A]2. Sig F is signed D with correction F stamped in below right; sigs F2-4 are signed D2-4. Sig B3 is found unsigned in some copies but is signed in this copy. As with all extant copies sigs C3-4 are cancelled, there being no known explanation.

ESTC lists 6 copies (including variant) in the UK and 8 in North America. Christie's offered a fine copy of the first edition with title in uncorrected state in 2004; prior to that the only two auction copies noted were those offered by Anderson Galleries in 1918 and 1923, though it is believed the Huth copy (Sotheby's sales, 1911-20) sold for £186 and the Christie-Miller copy (Sotheby's sales, 1916-27) sold for £250.

‘The present is the only unaided play by Nashe extant and appears to have been written for private performance before Archbishop Whitgift at Croydon in the fall of 1592. Dr McKerrow suggests that it may have been revised for a later performance before Elizabeth but Sir Edmund Chambers disposes of that possibility somewhat conclusively and, further, shows that it may well have been produced by members of Whitgift’s household rather than by a professional company. The ‘Summers’ of the title is of course Will Sommers, the jester of Henry VIII to whom there are frequent references in English literature for more than a century after his death in 1560 … Sixteen copies can be traced of which all but five are in public collections.’ (Pforzheimer)